A letter to J. K. Rowling.

I think you're pandering.

What happened was once upon a time, you had a great idea. An idea that ended up becoming an international cult classic. You made a world so magical that almost anyone could tap into it with their whole heart.

But what happened is that you finished your magnum opus. Harry and friends grew up. You rounded things out and tied them off.

But every third day we hear something new. Dumbledore is gay. Harry & Hermione should have ended up together. You're sorry you killed Fred. There's an American school just like Hogwarts and Beauxbatons and Durmstrang.

Joanne, stop. Please stop. You created six beautiful works of young adult fiction (5th book doesn't count, sorry not sorry), and you need to let them speak for themselves.

For some reason I have always felt like a good work of literature should stand alone. It's not a figure in a painting that needs a background behind it; it's a marble statue in the middle of a room. It's a static representation of what an artist wanted to create at a certain point in time. You might evolve, but you can't change what you made.

And I don't think you should change because of what we think. Harry Potter, as much as we love him, isn't ours. He's yours. And you had Hermione and Ron fall in love, and that's okay. You killed Fred, and that's okay. You never mentioned that Dumbledore is gay or that there are other magic schools, and that's okay.

I think because we love Harry so much, we feel entitled to take part in your creative process. Because you've created a world that we can step into, we think we can come into your space, take the quill out of your hand, and force you to rewrite bits to fill empty spaces in our hearts. We can't do that. It's only yours to do.

So, what I'm trying to say is that you don't have to try so hard. You don't have to give it all away. You just have to get up, get up, get up. You don't have to change a single thing.

Stop making prequels starring Eddie Redmayne. Just go to bed tonight, proud of what you've done.